


A Strong Defense

by ellen_fremedon



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, pre-HBP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-01
Updated: 2003-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:23:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellen_fremedon/pseuds/ellen_fremedon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle, the survivors regroup.</p><p>Written for the third wave of the Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest.  Response to the three-word challenge <i>Pomegranate, catamite, leash.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strong Defense

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Louise Lux for her thorough and thoughtful beta. Thanks also to Fox, Erica, and Flyghosh for comments and moral support.

Sirius Black had been dead a year, but Albus Dumbledore had been dead a fortnight, and the anniversary went unremarked.

Certainly, Black was far from Snape's mind when he walked out that afternoon after classes, as he had done every day since the funeral, to the small cemetery halfway between the castle and the village. He stood there, his hands drawn up into his sleeves, scuffing at the new turves with his feet until he realized what he was doing and forced himself to stand still.

Snape could not have said why he came to the old man's grave. When Dumbledore was alive, Snape had found little enough comfort in his presence, under his uncanny, discerning gaze; here, by the simple granite headstone, Snape felt neither presence nor comfort. He never spoke, aloud or silently. Still, he came every day, stood a short while, and walked back to the castle.

This day was no different-- except that, as he turned to leave, a splash of color caught his eye. He looked down the row of graves. The flowers, a loose spray of blossoms from some hedgerow or kitchen garden-- and therefore Lupin's offering, and not Potter's-- lay against Black's headstone. The ground beneath them was stony and irregular; there had been no body to bury, no smooth new turves mounded on the grave. Snape wondered why Lupin came here, whether he felt any presence, any comfort.

Or maybe there was comfort in Black's absence, Snape thought, and snorted.

But as he closed the cemetery gate, he realized it might be the truth. Lupin couldn't possibly lack for Sirius Black's presence, living all alone in Grimmauld Place, surrounded by the detritus of generations of Blacks... Naturally, Lupin would seek out some place as void of associations as his lover's empty grave, after a year living alone in that house. Exactly a year, Snape realized, which explained today's flowers.

Snape found it harder to explain, to his own satisfaction, why nine o'clock found him walking to the edge of the wards again. Surely, Lupin would not want his company, any more than he wanted Lupin's.

But at dinner in Hall, Snape had noticed, again, how no one mentioned Dumbledore. Not to Hagrid. Not to him. Least of all to Minerva. And how long had it been since anyone had spoken of Black, even to him?

It did cross Snape's mind, just before he Apparated, that had Dumbledore been alive, he would have found some pretext to send him-- to send someone, but the truly thankless tasks always fell to him, and why should this be any different-- to Grimmauld Place tonight. The thought made him want to glance over his shoulder.

Snape materialized, as he always did, in the downstairs sitting room, the only part of the house where the wards would permit it. The room was dark, but he lit no light; Kreacher had vanished not long after Black's death, and Mrs. Black's portrait had finally been taken down-- Lupin had been curiously silent about how he'd managed that-- but Snape was still wary in this house. Even two years after the Order had moved in, it crackled with dark magic. He could feel the traces of old wards, old curses; as always, their faint thrum against his skin brought him back to his childhood, and the traps and hexes that he'd woven around his door, his trunk, his notebooks. Woven and carefully dismantled, at first, lest he be punished for whatever his father had decided was unacceptable that day; and then, as his father's arbitrary discipline had dwindled to neglect-- heavily shaded, Snape could now see, by fear-- woven and interwoven, and let stand.

The thought of generations of wizards-- of adult wizards-- wrapping this house in dark spells like so many crudely-lettered 'Keep Out' signs made him feel vaguely ill. He shook his head to clear it, and, catching a faint light in the corner of his eye, followed it out the door and down the corridor.

"Who's there?" Lupin's voice drifted through the half-open kitchen door. Snape shouldered though. "Severus." Lupin sat, wand drawn, at one end of the long table; it seemed a longer distance than Snape remembered. He put his wand away. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter, Lupin," Snape said, though of course that was laughably untrue. "I didn't think you ought to be drinking alone."

Lupin glanced down at his empty teacup. "I haven't been drinking."

"Then you should be." Snape pulled the bottle from his robes and lifted the shrinking charm. "And so should I."

He pulled up a chair and sat down, draping his cloak over the back. Lupin lifted the bottle and turned the label into the light: _Chateau Mal Foi_. "Spoils of war? Do we dare?"

Lupin summoned two glasses, answering his own question, but Snape snorted, all the same. "Lucius had heavier wards on the cellars than on the chateau itself. I think we can trust the wine." Had Narcissa been with her husband, Snape would have incinerated the house and vineyards rather than bring away anything, would have expected scorched earth and poisoned wells. But had Narcissa-- who was a Black, after all-- been in hiding with Lucius, there would have been more effective wards in place. And the raid would have been even more of a fiasco. Snape sighed.

Lupin looked up from drawing out the cork with his wand, cocking his head and studying Snape intently. "This has been harder on you than on the rest of us, hasn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know that you loved Albus Dumbledore like a father, but all the same, you and Lucius Malfoy were--" Lupin gave his wand another twist-- "friends, for a long time."

"I'd hardly call it that," Snape snorted.

Lupin blushed inexplicably. "Well. Perhaps not. But--"

"Oh, good god," Snape said, and, grabbing the bottle from Lupin, "Give me that." He pulled the cork out with a hollow noise. "We weren't lovers, Lupin. I was Malfoy's associate, not his bloody catamite." He said nothing of holidays at the Rosiers', when he was sixteen and seventeen, and Lucius was a grown man, and beautiful, and his attentions-- however slight, at first; however haughty, later-- had made Snape feel wanted and worthy.

He poured out wine, and Lupin turned his glass in his hands, looking abashed. "I'm sorry. I had assumed, from the way--"

"From the abject toadying I was forced to do, you assumed I've been literally bending over for him as well? Let me assure you, Lupin, while the cause has demanded many sacrifices of me, I haven't yet been required to peddle my arse for the sake of goodness and purity."

"Would you?" asked Lupin lightly. "If it came to that?"

Snape shuddered. "Let's hope it never does."

"I'll drink to that," said Lupin, and clicked his glass against Snape's.

In a year of Occlumency lessons, there was hardly a memory Potter hadn't churned up; not one image from his sordid history with Lucius was still decently buried and forgotten. Nonetheless, Snape was unprepared for how the taste of the wine brought them all flooding back, formed a common thread through so much of his youth, through Lucius's attempts to tame him, to raise him above his tainted blood. Sybarite that he was, Lucius had begun Snape's education with his palate. Every time Lucius had ever deigned to kiss him, he had tasted like this, rich and decadent...

Snape swallowed, blinked, looked over at Lupin. The werewolf, too, was silent, abstracted-- perhaps giving the wine the respect it deserved. Perhaps caught up in memories of his own. His eyes fluttered closed when he drank; it smoothed the lines around them, made him look younger.

Lupin looked up from his glass-- it seemed to take him a long time to surface-- and Snape looked away. He was conscious of Lupin's eyes on him for a long time, but he drank and ignored him and eventually the werewolf looked away again. In silence, Snape drained his glass, looked over to see Lupin tilt his head back to catch the last few red drops from his own.

Lupin set down his glass. "You were right," he said. "I shouldn't have been not drinking." He frowned at the tangle of negatives, then reached for the bottle and poured.

Lupin lifted his glass and held it for a moment, looking as though he wanted to speak, but the moment passed and he brought it to his lips in silence again. Just as well, Snape thought, lifting his own glass. He was hardly eager to drink to the memory of Sirius Black, no matter how much it would appall Malfoy's shade. At least Lupin had the sense to choose silence over a trite libation to absent friends.

Absent friends. It wasn't as if he had any other kind. Perhaps Lupin did; Lupin was amiable to everyone. It made it hard to tell how close he was to anyone. With Black, of course, he'd been different-- willing to tell the bastard to shut up, for one thing-- but then Lupin and Black had been lovers since... Snape frowned and set down his glass.

"Were you and Black... together, before?" There was no need to explain what he meant by 'before'; indeed, Lupin might be one of the few wizards whose life was divided even more sharply than his own into Before and After. "Or was that part new?"

Lupin set down his glass. "We were never together in that way."

Snape stared at him: Lupin was looking down at his hands, lying loose and empty on the table, and very still. "But you wanted to be," he said at last.

It was not a question, and Lupin did not treat it as one; he let out a long breath, picked up his glass and drank, and when he finally met Snape's eyes again, he seemed-- for all that he was clearly caught up in memory-- more present than Snape had seen him all year. "When we were young," Lupin said, "Sirius had a-- an irresistible charisma." He paused, as if waiting for Snape to contradict him, but Snape was silent, and Lupin continued. "You got caught up in his moods, in his feelings. If he was angry with you, you couldn't stay calm. If he loved you, you loved him. Fiercely and unconditionally."

Lupin still seemed to be expecting him to argue, but Snape merely nodded in agreement. "And if he hated you," Snape said-- from the start, he did not say, and completely disproportionately to anything you ever did to him-- "the feeling was equally contagious."

Lupin nodded. He almost seemed to be smiling; he raised his glass before Snape could be sure. When he spoke again, the smile, if it had been there, was gone. "I was always very glad that Sirius never fancied boys, except maybe James." Snape blinked at that, but Lupin went on. "Because I knew I couldn't have resisted him, if he'd ever wanted me like that. And I didn't want to love him any more than I already did."

Lupin slowly drained his glass. Snape thought of Black's last year, the slow loss of his tenuous grip on sanity that, in retrospect, had seemed so obvious, though of course no one had said so to Lupin. Lupin, who'd lived for a year with the madman and his contagious moods, and come out of it in love with him. "What changed?"

Lupin laughed, a short bark of a laugh that sounded disconcertingly like Black. "What didn't?" He shared out what was left of the bottle between their glasses, and stared at his hands again for a moment. "We had... not been on the best of terms, before," he said at last. "I never completely forgave him for sending you to the Shrieking Shack. And there were..." Lupin shook his head. "It doesn't matter. When Sirius came back, none of that mattered. He'd spent twelve years finding things to blame himself for, ways to punish himself." He picked up his glass and drank deeply. "I couldn't not forgive him.

"A romance for the ages," Snape said, when it became clear Lupin wasn't going to say anything else without some prodding. "You forgave him and he rejected you. Or maybe you just pined for him for two years?" He raised his glass and drank. "Or should I say--"

"If you say 'mooned over him,' Severus, I will hurt you." Snape looked at Lupin over the rim of his glass; the werewolf's face gave nothing away, but Lupin's voice was low and rapid. "I did offer. I never pressed, but I offered. Obliquely, but Sirius knew. That I wanted him.

"I wanted to touch him any way I could. Any way he would let me. As a friend, as a lover-- it hardly mattered, as long as I could be with him. Because he was the only one left. The only one who remembered."

"Remembered...?"

"What it was like, before everything crashed down around us. What _I_ was like, when I was young, when I didn't know what was coming. When my hair wasn't gray yet." Lupin picked up his glass, but did not drink. "I lost parts of myself, when I lost them. My friends," he clarified. "Things I only said, and did, and thought, and felt, when I was with them. They just--" he broke off, sighed. "I could still remember, what it was like to be young, and happy, not have the slightest idea what was coming. _I_ could remember. But no one else could. No one in my life could share any of those memories, could make them real to me. Could bring those parts of me back.

"Not until Sirius came back." Lupin stared into his glass. "And he made me feel whole again." He sipped at his wine, frowned, and then swallowed all the rest at a draught. "I never pressed him. Sirius found it hard enough to just be a friend, sometimes. And that was enough. More than enough." He set the empty glass down, very lightly and carefully, as though it took all his effort not to slam it against the table. "And it wasn't nearly enough and I knew it never would be. But I thought there would be time for all the rest. So I gave him time." Lupin shook his head, slowly and wearily. "Maybe I should have pressed."

"Hindsight," Snape said. He drained his own glass and set it down.

"I'm sick of hindsight," said Lupin. He stared at nothing for a moment, and then slowly focused his eyes on Snape's again. "Thank you, Severus," he said. And then, gently, almost sadly: "Now go home."

* * *

The next afternoon was hot and close; there was not a breath of wind to stir the grass on Dumbledore's grave. "If you had come out of this alive," Snape said. His voice was so stifled in the still, heavy air that for a moment he did not realize he was speaking aloud, and when he did, he felt foolish. He dropped his voice to a near-whisper, but he went on: "If you were alive, I think I'd be angry at you for killing Lucius."

That evening at dinner, he caught Potter looking at him with something that looked like concern. He scowled at the boy, and Potter rolled his eyes and looked away. As soon as he'd averted his gaze, Snape took in a deep breath and carefully blanked his mind. Either Potter was getting cocky again, or Snape was getting lax; probably the former, but it would never do to let his defenses slip.

As he left the Hall, Potter fell into step beside him for a moment. "I wasn't snooping," he muttered, _sotto voce_. "You just looked tired, that's all. I wondered if you'd been summoned."

Snape steered the boy into a doorway and leaned down to hiss in his face. "I need not remind you, Potter, you are not yet a member of the Order, nor am I obligated to keep you abreast of my activities."

Potter stared up at him; Snape could tell he was struggling to keep his mind to himself, to leash his power, if not his curiosity. "So you haven't been summoned, then."

Snape sighed. "No. I haven't. Now leave me alone."

The summons came the next night. There was no gathering scheduled, but Snape had been expecting one ever since the raid, had kept his mask ready, shrunken and hidden inside his robes. He still had to walk to the edge of the grounds before he could Apparate, though, and was one of the last to arrive. Under the mask, he darted his eyes-- Malfoy Manor, he'd known the place from the touch of its wards, and it looked like all the survivors had been summoned-- and took his place in the circle.

In the center, Narcissa knelt, unmasked and dressed in full mourning. She offered up her left arm for the Mark. She did not flinch when the brand touched her, though her eyes were streaming.

Afterwards, Bellatrix-- masked as they all were, but unmistakable-- held her and murmured to her, whether comfort or congratulations Snape could not hear. She held her sister's hand while the Dark Lord himself masked her. Masked, only their hair told them apart; Rodolphus had been the first killed in the raid, and Bellatrix, too, was dressed in mourning. As Snape Apparated away, his last sight was of the women walking, with brisk step and straight carriage, one at each of the Dark Lord's arms, their three faces bent close together.

Narcissa's induction was the evening's only business; Snape had little to report to the Order, and the next night's meeting broke up quickly.

Perhaps it was the work waiting back at the castle-- mindless work, for he was deputy headmaster now, and the year's Hogwarts letters were to go out in less than a month-- that made Snape linger in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place.

Lupin tapped the cooling teapot with his wand, and it began to steam again. "So. Neither Black sister has any claim on her devotion now, except for Voldemort." Neither of them mentioned Draco, and Snape was grateful for Lupin's silence. Lupin poured tea for himself, and held the pot inquiringly above Snape's cup. "I find that a rather disquieting thought."

Snape nodded, and Lupin poured him tea. "Positively terrifying, if you ask me. Bellatrix has never been a paragon of sanity, and Narcissa seems to be taking all her cues from her big sister."

Lupin sipped his tea. "That's one way Sirius was much more like them than he was ever willing to admit."

"That he was insane? No argument here."

Lupin looked at him levelly. "That he had a frightening capacity for devotion."

"He wasn't the only one, Lupin. I don't recall your ever mentioning to the headmaster three years ago that your friend was an illegal Animagus, that he knew secret ways into the castle."

Again, the same level gaze. "Yes, I think we've been over that lapse of mine before."

And they had been, over it and over it again. Snape realized he'd brought up that grudge more from habit than from any real pleasure in the quarrel, or real desire to win it-- sometime in the past year, the matter had become moot, and the grudge had lost its savor. Snape felt vaguely disappointed. "So we have," he said.

Lupin blinked at him, but sipped his tea and refrained from comment. There was a silence. "You never used to be able to get out of here soon enough," Lupin said at last.

"Black didn't exactly make me feel welcome in this house."

"I'd wondered whether there were more to it than that. If you had memories of this place." Snape must have looked uncomprehending. "I know you and Regulus were in different years," Lupin clarified, "but-- were you friends? I had thought he was part of your circle."

Snape snorted. "Throughout my school days, the Snapes were the youngest wizarding family in Slytherin. The Blacks, and their circle, tolerated me, on Rosier's sufferance, or Malfoy's." And Regulus was even more of a prat than his brother, Snape did not add. "By the time I'd proven to them and their ilk that my acquaintance was worth cultivating, I no longer wanted anything to do with them."

"I never came here either," said Lupin. "James did, a few times. After third year or so, Sirius never brought any of his friends home. I think he was ashamed to."

It was never pleasant to learn that he had anything in common with Black. Less pleasant to suddenly remember how he had watched the Black brothers leave for the train station at Christmas of his second year, surrounded by the scions of pureblood society, and wished for a house and a family that he could be proud to bring his friends home to, even more than he had wished for friends to bring there.

Some of his thoughts must have shown in his face; Lupin smiled at him, a little sadly. "You know, I knew you envied Sirius," he said, "but I always assumed it was about money, or looks."

Snape rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you for reminding me of all the ways in which--

"It was more than that, though," Lupin said, talking right over him, "wasn't it?" He paused until Snape met his eyes. "He rejected what you always wanted."

Snape was the first to look away. "I suppose he did, at that." He stood up, scraping his chair loudly over the flagstones. "I have work back at the castle, Lupin."

* * *

On the last morning of term, Potter came to his office and asked if they could continue his Occlumency and Legilimency training over the summer at Grimmauld Place.

Snape looked up from his stack of first-year exams and stared at the boy. As always, there was a brief moment of struggle, but neither's defenses fell.

"I would have thought that the prospect of a whole summer without your perverted old potions master rifling through your private thoughts would have you jumping for joy."

Potter looked at the ceiling. "Do we have to go though all that again, Professor?"

Snape stood up. "You tell me, Potter." He stared down at the boy. "You are the one who is proposing that we meet privately, outside the school and outside the academic year."

Potter gaped for a moment, and then rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable," he muttered, and then, "Look, I just want to keep in practice, sir. That's it. No ulterior motives."

Snape snorted. "The day you have no ulterior motives, Potter, is the day--"

"--you think I could have hidden it from you?"

"Potter, do not interrupt me!"

"I'm sorry. Sir," he added, packing as much insincerity into the syllable as it would hold. "But if I had any _designs_ on you, don't you think you would have seen them? You've seen my thoughts, you've seen my memories-- you've seen my _fantasies_, for god's sake."

"So I have. And you've seen a fair number of mine, Potter." He gave it a moment to sink in, a moment for Potter to remember even a fraction of what they'd uncovered in each other's minds.

Potter's hands unclenched. "I've seen enough to know you're not going to act on yours."

"No?"

"No. You wouldn't do that with a student." Potter sounded very sure of himself. "I don't think you'd even do that with someone who'd been your student once."

"So you've seen my _ethics_, as well?" Snape said, letting his voice drip sarcasm.

"No, I've seen Malfoy." Snape blinked, taken aback, and Potter pressed his momentary advantage, prodding at his mind until a welter of memories swirled up-- Lucius guiding his wand hand through a difficult hex, Lucius leading him through a dance step, Lucius explaining a fine point of wizarding politics, Lucius pouring out a row of tiny glasses of rich and rare wines. "Enology is no different from potions, Severus. You have the nose for that. Surely, you can turn it to more pleasant use." Leaning in close, whispering: _"I already know your tongue is talented."_

Snape opened his eyes. Potter was still there. Snape closed them again.

"He was a real creep. Sir," Potter offered.

Snape rubbed at his temples. "Thank you, Mr. Potter, I had reached that conclusion myself some time ago."

"So, are we going to continue the training?"

Potter didn't even have the decency to look smug about his victory. "Far be it from me to squelch this sudden urge towards diligence, Potter." Snape sighed. "Send word when you leave your relations' home, and I'll make arrangements."

"I will," Potter said. "Have a good summer, Professor."

* * *

The castle emptied for the summer, and the Order began to meet almost daily. Snape had little to contribute. There had been another summons of the Death Eaters, but once again the Dark Lord had not touched on future plans. Instead, the survivors of the raid had been chastised for letting so many of their fellows fall. Or be taken, the Dark Lord had added, and Snape had thought his eye had lingered on him; but the Dark Lord had looked hard at each of them, and Snape had been punished no more than any of the others. Save, of course, for Bellatrix and Narcissa, who stood unmasked and proud at the Dark Lord's side as he dealt out cruciations, and whose nods or quiet words brought the relief of _Finite Incantatem_.

Snape had tried to keep his eyes open to see which of them ended his own punishment, but to no avail.

The next day, the Order met, and he reported what little he'd been able to bring away from the gathering-- guesses about who was favored by whom, of no immediate use or import. All down the table, it was the same-- no news, no plans. The Order was waiting on Voldemort to make a move, as they always had-- or, almost always, Snape amended. The raid on the chateau had been action, and not reaction. Not the most inspiring of precedents.

The meeting wound down, broke into smaller conversations. Snape, who had nothing to say to anyone, stood up to take his leave. Just inside the door, he caught the sound of an unfamiliar voice-- no, voices. He stopped on the threshold, turned around and scanned the room. There was a chessboard set up on the counter, in an endgame problem; he had heard the pieces squabbling with each other about the number of moves until mate.

Snape shook his head at his own paranoia.

"Severus?" Lupin had appeared at his side. "Something the matter?"

"You still have that chess set, Lupin? It was already beyond repair in our second year." It was undoubtedly the same set, half the pawns headless and the white bishop a refugee from another set altogether.

"You remember that?" said Lupin. "It was a long time ago." That one Christmas, they had been the only Gryffindor and the only Slytherin younger than sixth year staying at school. They had played chess, with Lupin's ancient and mismatched set, every day. They'd spoken little over the board, and after term started, they'd ignored each other completely.

"Of course I remember," he snapped.

Lupin just looked at him, as if weighing his words. He drew in a breath, but before he could speak, Snape said, "I don't know why you'd think I'd have forgotten, Lupin. You were a better opponent than any of the Slytherins of my year."

After a moment, Lupin smiled, more with his eyes than with his mouth. "Rematch?" he offered.

The kitchen was still full of people. Snape hesitated.

"Of course, if you're out of practice, I'd be glad to give you a pawn." Lupin's eyes were still smiling.

Snape didn't dignify that with an answer, just snatched the chessboard off the counter and set it up at one end of the long table. He grabbed two pawns and held his fists out to Lupin. "Choose."

* * *

Lupin was still a formidable opponent. He won the first game, Snape won the second. After the next meeting, Lupin won two out of three, and after that, they began playing almost daily; after all, there was no way Snape could end the competition until he was winning nearly every game. Which, he conceded privately, might take time; Lupin was still one of the best opponents he'd ever played.

And he'd let his own skills rust disgracefully. In recent years, he'd seldom played anyone but Lucius, and chess was one area in which Lucius had never had anything to teach him.

"Remus," Lupin said one evening. "When we played at school you called me Remus."

"When we played at school, we were twelve." Snape frowned and rubbed at his arm; the Mark was twingeing tonight, as though a small group of Death Eaters had gathered somewhere, not far away.

"Trouble?" Lupin asked.

"Immediate, no. Long-term, possibly." Snape moved a bishop, who angrily shook off his hand and insisted on walking under his own steam. He looked up from the board and stretched out his arm; the Mark's appearance was unchanged. "I think there is a small gathering at Narcissa Malfoy's town house. The Dark Lord might be there."

"And you haven't been summoned. Is it cause for concern?"

"No," Snape snapped. Lupin waited. "Possibly. It doesn't feel like a large gathering; I don't think I'm precisely out of favor, just out of the new cabal."

"The Black sisters?"

"And a few other favorites. Rabastan Lestrange. Wormtail, Merlin only knows why. I don't know what they're up to, but I don't think anyone else knows, either." He rubbed again at his arm. It didn't help. "It's your move, Lupin."

"Remus," Lupin repeated. Snape opened his mouth to protest, and Lupin cut him off with a sigh. "Why don't we make it a forfeit. If I win, you call me Remus, and if you win, I'll call you Snape. Deal?"

"Deal," Snape agreed. "And it's your move."

"So you said," Lupin muttered. "So you said." He looked speculatively at Snape for a moment, then turned to the board with renewed concentration.

Lupin won the game. Or, Remus, rather.

* * *

On the first of August, Potter, newly come into his majority and his inheritance, arrived at Grimmauld Place, and Snape, for the first time since Dumbledore's death, brought out the Pensieve.

Over the past year, Snape had used it more often than Dumbledore had, but it was Dumbledore's Pensieve; Snape had never stored any of his own memories in it for longer than a few hours.

Nor had he stored many memories there. Ever since September, when he had resumed Potter's Occlumency training, their practice had been to use the Pensieve to keep only those thoughts that the other could not be allowed to see, for strategic reasons. Anything else was fair game. Snape had laid down the rule solely to justify his own retaliatory delving into Potter's most humiliating memories, but given the chance to fight as dirty as he could, Potter had quickly developed into a surprisingly strong Legilimens.

Potter, to his knowledge, had respected their rule, and not ransacked the Pensieve again. His prying had made Snape avoid Dumbledore's own stored thoughts more scrupulously than he otherwise might have. Though in truth, Snape had not been much tempted. He had seen much of Dumbledore's mind, over the years, in their own Occlumency lessons, and since. Dumbledore's long life had compassed many of the bleakest years of modern wizarddom, and few of his memories were of sunshine and roses.

Snape tapped his wand idly on his desk, and tried to decide whether he'd learned anything of real strategic value over the last month. He couldn't think of anything; the Dark Lord had been quiet and the Order had been spinning their wheels, and Snape had done nothing but dance attendance on both masters all summer, drinking tea and playing chess, and waiting.

There was the matter of the raid itself, though. He racked his brain without result for far too long before he remembered that had a Pensieve at his disposal. He concentrated-- _the long wait for the Aurors, knowing they would come, unable to let on his nervousness... the Dark Lord standing on the balcony above the rolling Mal Foi vineyards... fingering his mask, reminding himself he must reach for it first, even before his wand, when the Aurors came_\-- and tapped his wand to his temple.

He dropped the long tendril into the stone basin and prodded it to life, sifting through the images that appeared. Minerva's face: _"How long should it take to extradite an Azkaban escapee? Mark my words, there are Galleons changing hands, at the highest levels." The air around the chateau crackling with Apparation. Lucius, lying dead in the courtyard below. The Mask suddenly seeming tighter as he hears that Dumbledore has led the raid himself. The Dark Lord, sending him away--_

Snape stopped, lifted that tendril loose and stirred it to life again, and watched. That was it. The Dark Lord had learned that Dumbledore was present, and his first action had been to send Snape from his side, with a handful of henchmen, to deal with the melee on the ground floor. And by the time Snape had managed, through Stunners to the back and Obliviation, to ditch the henchmen and make his way back to Voldemort, Dumbledore had been dead.

It might have been strategy, sending him away; a mark of trust, putting him in charge. Or it might have been that the Dark Lord did not trust him all, at least where Dumbledore was concerned.

Well. That was hardly a new thought, or one that had not occurred to Potter. He touched his wand to his temple and took back the memory of the raid.

In the end, he left the Pensieve at Hogwarts. For once in his life, he seemed to have nothing to hide.

Potter accosted him as soon as he arrived at Grimmauld Place. "No Pensieve?"

"Your powers of observation astound me, Potter. Have you asked your... tenant, I suppose, now that you have come into possession of this miserable edifice, where we might conduct our lesson?"

"Drawing room. Second floor. Remus said to tell you he'd be around all day-- did you ask him to chaperone?"

Snape glared at the boy, and Potter stopped smirking, though only just.

They headed up the stairs. "So is there any news, then?"

"That's for you to find out, Potter. If you can." Snape smiled, aware that the expression made Potter want to hex him.

But the boy had evidently been practicing his control; he didn't so much as blink. "Don't think I won't. Sir."

* * *

Potter had kept in practice, and defended himself well; at the end of the lesson, Snape was distracted, his mind filled with the summer's flotsam-- a chess problem, a circle of masks and robes, Remus Lupin's hands resting on the table, the touch of layers of wards constantly reweaving all around him.

Remus was about, though, and the chessboard was in the kitchen where it always was, and by the time the Order gathered he'd won one game and lost one, and felt somewhat more collected. Though the prospect of what came after the meeting was still unsettling.

Potter had disappeared after the lesson; they'd been left to play chess in peace. Snape had expected him to eavesdrop on the meeting-- he got up ten minutes in and opened the kitchen door, hoping to catch him-- but the corridor was empty. Snape shut the door and sat back down. "Thought I heard something," he muttered. Remus shook his head and smiled.

"You're paranoid, Snape," Moody grumbled.

From the hearth, a clanking voice muttered "anyerablackolkettle." One of the Weasley twins tucked his wand back up his sleeve; Tonks laughed aloud. Moody, undeterred, said, "Worried about tonight?"

"Naturally," said Snape, which rather took the wind out of Moody's sails.

After almost nightly meeting of the Black sisters' small cabal, the Dark Lord had at last called a conclave of all his Death Eaters; the Order had been waiting all summer for this night, for the revelation of Voldemort's new plan.

If all went well, after tonight they could begin to plan strategy in earnest.

Snape did not want to think about what might happen if all did not go well.

Out of habit, Snape stayed seated at the table when the meeting broke up, but when he became aware of Remus, sitting next to him, he pushed back his chair and stood up. "I don't think I have the concentration for chess just now, Remus. Tomorrow, perhaps."

"I wasn't going to suggest it, actually." Remus spoke even more quietly than usual. "After listening to Moody discuss exit strategies, I don't think I could stomach any kind of sacrifice."

"It won't come to that." _That_, in Snape's case, being the vials of potions in his robes, some carried openly, some hidden.

Some of them only simulated death.

"Even so," Remus said. "For good or ill, the tide's about to turn." He stood up; suddenly his face was so close that Snape had to bend his neck to look in his eyes. "It's going to be open war, Severus. Things are about to change." And he pulled Snape's head down and kissed him.

At first Snape froze, and as soon as he began to respond, Remus released him and pulled away. Snape opened his eyes; he hadn't noticed he'd closed them. Remus's face was expressionless, but he was breathing fast. "This time," he said, "I _am_ going to press."

Snape swallowed. "You don't have to."

Remus nodded sharply. "Come upstairs."

Remus didn't look behind him to see if Snape followed, but Snape thought he saw his shoulders relax when he heard Snape's footfall behind him on the stairs.

Remus opened a door: Snape took in nothing of the small room but the bed that dominated it, a Victorian monstrosity, all age-blackened varnish and fat pomegranate finials on the posts. One side was piled with pillows; the other, with books, a wall of them against the headboard that mirrored the stack on the night table. Remus muttered a locking spell, and looked up.

It had only been a brief kiss, downstairs, and tentative, and neither of them moved to resume it right away. Remus, after a moment's hesitation, laid his hands against Snape's shoulders, and stroked the outlines of his collarbones with his thumbs, through the coarse black fabric of his robe. He stroked again, and Snape couldn't stop his head falling back, just a little, couldn't help but bare his throat to Remus's touch. And at that small movement, Remus gripped his shoulders, hard, and stretched up to press his lips to Snape's neck.

Snape froze, hardly even breathing, letting him lick and mouth at his neck for a few moments-- one spot, right at the corner of his jaw, maddening-- before he pulled Remus closer, pressed his growing erection into the seam of his hip, and bent down to kiss his neck, his jaw, his mouth. Remus was fumbling with Snape's clothes, pushing the outer robe off his shoulders, undoing the buttons on the gown beneath, unfastening his belt; when he moved to the buttons of his own Muggle shirt, Snape batted his hands away. He undid them, biting and sucking at the flesh each one exposed-- Remus's hands dropped to his trousers-- and then Snape backed into the bed, and Remus was standing between his knees, naked but for his shirt.

The bed was high and Snape was tall; his mouth could reach Remus's nipples, but not his cock, and after a moment that seemed a terrible shame. Snape crawled backwards onto the bed, only then noticing he still had his boots on, but Remus had noticed first, was yanking them off, and Snape's inner robe too. That left Remus's shirt and Snape's underpants, and those followed quickly, and they fell, skin against skin, onto--

"What the hell?"

"Sorry about that. I tend to read in bed."

"Yes, so I gathered," Snape said, rolling off a stack of bound _Alchemy Annual_s. "Here." He dropped the stack into Remus's arms-- they let off a small puff of dust-- and leaned over and pushed the rest off the bed.

He turned over to see Remus looking down at him. "What?"

"Stay just like that," Remus said. And he did-- propped on his elbows, lying half against the bolster, while Remus crawled up the bed, kissed his mouth briefly but fiercely, and then threw one leg over Snape's chest and took himself in hand and rubbed the tip of his cock against Snape's parted lips.

Snape leaned in to take the head into his mouth and held it there for a moment, just feeling the weight of Remus's cock on his tongue, and then pulled back, not sucking yet, just pressing his lips close around it. Remus let out a slow breath.

Snape brought his hands in to touch whatever he could reach-- Remus's calves and thighs, it didn't matter-- and let Remus control the pace. It was a slow pace. Snape supposed Remus was fucking his mouth-- he pressed in and out, one hand braced against the headboard, the other wrapped around his cock-- but the word hardly fit. Fucking, in Snape's experience, was seldom this slow, never this gentle.

On each stroke, his mouth met Remus's fist; he licked Remus's fingers, and Remus traced Snape's lips with his thumb. It wasn't enough, after a while-- Snape was sucking hard, straining forward, scraping Remus's fingers with his teeth, but instead of giving him more, fucking his mouth truly, Remus pulled away, backed off, looked down at Snape with his brown eyes dilated and huge and his lip swollen where he'd bitten it, and then slithered down Snape's body and closed his mouth around him.

His weight was all on Snape's legs; Snape didn't have the leverage to really thrust-- just to twitch and quiver and try to rock his hips, as Remus swallowed around his cock. He hadn't realized just how hard he was, just how close to the edge, but now he could feel that he was almost there. Part of him wanted nothing more than to follow the heat of Remus's mouth, but the rest of him didn't want this to be over so soon. "Remus." Remus sucked harder. "God, Remus, stop. I'm too-- I'll--"

Remus stopped instantly. "No, you won't." He was breathing hard, almost panting. "Not yet."

Remus leaned in and kissed him, and then reached out to grope in the bedside table. He brought out a tube of some Muggle concoction, vile-smelling and cold, but smooth and slick when-- to Snape's slight surprise, for Remus had been in control of their encounter from the beginning-- Remus slathered it over Snape's cock. Snape couldn't help thrusting into his fist. "Here," Remus said, and pressed the tube into Snape's hand. He braced himself against the headboard again, straddling Snape's body. "Now me."

Snape squeezed some of the lubricant onto his fingers and reached around, grasping Remus's hipbone to hold him where he wanted him. He touched the small opening lightly, and though Remus spread his knees even wider and wriggled his hips and tried to push back onto his fingers, Snape didn't press harder, or move to breach him just yet.

Snape could feel the balance of power shifting, the longer he kept Remus on the edge, the closer he brought him to begging. He suspected that Remus was as deeply discomfited as he would be by this slow teasing-- Snape had always found it less worrisome to let himself be overpowered, taken, stripped of control, than to be coaxed, gently and by degrees, into laying down his power, into surrender. Remus must understand that, Snape thought, to have so thoroughly disarmed him, before; and he was resolved to turn the tables.

Remus's breathing grew more ragged, as Snape stroked slowly-- he could feel the ring of flesh quivering, almost grasping at his fingers-- until at last a groan broke through, made him gasp and catch his breath. "More. God, Severus, please." He slipped inside with two fingers-- Remus threw back his head and pushed back, and Snape didn't know which made his cock leap: the thought of how that incredible tight heat would feel around it, or the sound of Remus's ragged breathing, giving way to a half-voiced, wordless, quiet moan as Snape found the small gland and pressed. He worked it, faster than he'd planned, and harder-- hadn't he wanted to tease Remus, to keep him on the edge? Now, he just wanted to do whatever would keep Remus making those sounds. Remus's arms were shaking, now, enough that the headboard rattled, and beads of sweat ran down the tense lines of the muscles. Snape wanted to catch one on his tongue, but that would mean turning his eyes away from the feast before them-- Remus's throat working, swallowing down his moans; the taut cords of his neck, also glistening with sweat; and below, the rhythmic leaping of his stomach with each fast, shallow breath, and in counterpoint, the dip and sway of his cock.

Snape's own cock twitched-- he was almost painfully hard now-- and he knew if he kept this up much longer, he'd come before he ever got inside. Or Remus would. He withdrew his fingers and seized Remus's other hip-- Remus pushed down-- and between the two of them and gravity, he was in, all the way, and Remus was moaning and muscles were jumping in his thighs, under Snape's hands. It was almost unbearably tight, and hot, and Remus was leaning forward, trying to get a better angle or to rub his cock against Snape's belly or get close enough to kiss, Snape didn't know.

Snape had no control over the mechanics of their coupling-- Remus pushed back against him, fast, shallow thrusts, and Snape could only go along with his rhythm-- but Remus's control over himself was almost completely worn away. He breathed through his teeth, unevenly.

Snape unclenched one hand from the ridge of Remus's hipbone-- his knuckles were white-- and reached back to touch where they joined. Remus shuddered, trembled around him, and Snape felt it in the soles of his feet, his palms, his stomach-- would have felt it in his balls, if he could have told where they left off and the rest of him began. He stroked there again, reached back with the other hand, too-- deprived of his support, Remus shook, the headboard creaked, and sweat dripped from his arms and onto Snape's forehead-- and touched whatever he could reach, short, disjointed strokes over the puckered skin. Remus let out a long, stuttering groan.

"Remus." Snape's voice sounded like a stranger's, as hoarse as if he'd been the one moaning all this time, and perhaps he had. He snaked one hand back around and squeezed Remus's cock. "Come for me." He clenched and pulled with one hand, and with the other, pushed in, pressing one finger right up alongside his own cock, and Remus cried out and came hard over Snape's chest and stomach and hand. His body went slack, hanging from the headboard like a puppet from its strings, but inside, he still trembled with the aftershocks; Snape felt them, small shudders over his finger, over his cock. He crooked his finger, once, twice, just the slightest bit, all he could manage in that tightness-- Remus panted above him, still twitching and shivering around him-- he was stroking his own cock inside Remus's body, and as soon as he thought it, he was coming, hard. He felt his own wet heat spill down his hand, and shuddered.

Remus's arms buckled, and he let go the headboard and collapsed against Snape's chest-- crushing the wind out of him, but it was nothing, it was fine. It was good, Remus's warm weight; it held him together. His cock slipped out, finally, and somewhere along the line Snape had moved his hands; he idly stroked Remus's thighs, and Remus had a hand twisted in his hair. He breathed steadily against Snape's neck.

Too soon, Remus sat up and found his wand in the tangled pile of clothes. _"Scourgify,"_ he muttered, over their skin and the bed. The light through the small window was fading; the Death Eaters would gather soon.

Snape sat up, reached over the bed for his own garments, began to dress. In their haste, they'd dislodged a few vials, and he patted down all of his pockets carefully, making sure everything was where it should be. Remus watched, still naked, silent. Snape realized he was waiting for Remus to speak first.

Well, that would never do. "You might want to warn Potter, unless you want him to have an apoplexy at his Occlumency lesson tomorrow."

Remus blinked, and then smiled. "I suppose I ought to."

When Snape was dressed, Remus stood up and leaned against him, loosely embracing him. "I'd prefer that this not be a good-bye."

"That makes two of us, then." Snape stepped back, held Remus at arm's length and looked at him. "I wish I could stay all night."

"Come back, and you can." Remus clasped his hands over Snape's, where they lay on his shoulders.

Snape nodded. "Don't wait up."

Remus squeezed his hands and let go. "It's nearly time, you need to go," he said.

It was, and he did. Snape made a final check of his pockets, his wand, his mask. He hesitated, knowing that if he kissed Remus, he would find it even harder to walk away from him. Remus made up his mind for him, kissing him lightly at the corner of his mouth. "Now go," he said, and Snape went, out the door and down the hall, down the stairs to the unwarded sitting room, and out. The wards still thrummed against his skin, pulled at his Mark, but this time, they seemed to slide off, to find no purchase anywhere Remus had touched him.


End file.
